News Wire

New Report Finds Gender-Based Violence 'Too Costly to Ignore'

On the heels of the Ray Rice scandal in the U.S., a new report by the accounting firm KPMG says that violence against women in South Africa costs the country between $2 and $4 billion yearly. The lost funds could pay wage subsidies for all unemployed youths, build half a million houses or give health care to a quarter of all South Africans, the report says.

“We aren’t always able to put a number to human suffering, and it is controversial to do so,” said KPMG staffer Laura Brooks. “But this [figure] puts gender-based violence in a language that people can understand. If we can try put a number to it, it at least draws attention to it.”

The report, “The Economic Impact of Violence Against Women,” also follows the manslaughter conviction of Olympian “Blade Runner” Oscar Pretorius, who claimed to have shot his girlfriend four times by mistake.

In South Africa, a woman is killed by domestic violence on average every eight hours. The rate of intimate femicide, the killing of women by their partners, is five times higher than the global average.

To put that figure into perspective, more than seven times as many murders are committed in South Africa than in the U.S., and South Africa has a population of just 51 million, compared with 317 million in the U.S.

The cost to government of $45 million a year includes expenses associated with preventative programs, medical and aftercare services and police and judicial services.

A related study by researchers at Stanford and Oxford universities found that domestic violence, mainly against women and children worldwide, kills far more people than wars and is an often overlooked scourge that costs the world economy more than $8 trillion a year.

The authors urged the United Nations to pay more attention to abuse at home that gets less attention than armed conflicts such as those in Syria and Ukraine.

“For every civil war battlefield death, roughly nine people … are killed in inter-personal disputes,” Anke Hoeffler of Oxford University and James Fearon of Stanford University wrote in the report.

From domestic disputes to wars, they estimated that all violence worldwide cost $9.5 trillion a year, mainly in lost economic output and equivalent to 11.2 percent of world gross domestic product.

In recent years, approximately 20 to 25 nations experienced civil wars, devastating many local economies and costing approximately $170 billion a year. Homicides, mainly of men, unrelated to domestic disputes, cost $650 billion. But those figures were dwarfed by the $8 trillion annual cost of domestic violence, mostly against women and children.

Bjorn Lomborg, head of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which commissioned the report, said household violence was often overlooked, just as car crashes attract less attention than plane crashes even though many more die in road accidents.

“This is not just about saying ‘this is a big problem,’” he told Reuters. “It’s a way to start finding smart solutions.”

New HIV Treatment Program Launched in Southeast

More than 1.1 million people are currently living with HIV in America, with an estimated 50,000 new infections each year across the nation.

In order to remain healthy and to reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to their partners, those who are HIV-positive must take medications, remain in care and adhere to treatment.

“When the national strategy was released in 2010, it envisioned a future in which new infections would be rare, all citizens would have unfettered access to high-quality, life-extending care, and there would be a significant decline in the stigma attached to and the discrimination faced by those living with HIV,” said Douglas Brooks, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy.

Douglas, along with local and national health care experts, policymakers and grassroots activists, gathered at the United Medical Center in Southeast Sept. 17 for the launch of a new communication campaign, “HIV Treatment Works,” that will target residents of Wards 7 and 8 and bordering Prince George’s County communities.

In the two wards cumulatively, approximately 3.4 percent of residents are HIV-positive, but countless others do not know their status. And many who are infected have not been diligent in sticking to their regimen of life-saving medications.

“I’ve lived with HIV for almost 25 years, and I know the challenge of adhering to treatment – that’s why this campaign is so important,” said Douglas, who was tapped by President Barack Obama to oversee AIDS policy due to his extensive experience as an HIV/AIDS policy expert. “We’re targeting more susceptible communities and integrating prevention with care.”

The national HIV prevention campaign, under the Centers for Disease Control’s Act Against AIDS initiative, encourages individuals living with HIV to seek professional medical care and to follow the directives of their doctors.

One physician said advances in the treatment of HIV/AIDS have caused some people to ignore the severity of the virus and the complications it can cause.

“Education is still the key to reducing the number of those who become infected. Unfortunately, some people have grown complacent,” said Dr. Nickolas DeLuca, chief of the prevention communication branch in the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the CDC. “Since 2009, we’ve increased our [outreach efforts] from one to 10 campaigns with black gay men, black bisexual men and Latino men being specifically targeted because of their disproportionate infection rates.”

DeLuca added that out of 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, 82 percent have been diagnosed, but only 66 percent are linked to care and only 37 percent have been retained in care. Further discouraging numbers indicate that only 25 percent are virally suppressed.

One former drug addict now works in the black community to help others with issues of addiction and HIV infection.

“I used heroin for 32 years and tested positive for the virus in 1987. Back then I was both ignorant and apathetic, even homeless, and didn’t care about treatment,” said Vernial Batts, 60, a participant in the HIV Treatment Works program and a native Washingtonian. “I tell my story to encourage others, especially those who have been recently diagnosed.”

DOJ Prohibits Police from Wearing "I am Darren Wilson" Bracelets

The U.S. Department of Justice ordered Ferguson police officers to stop wearing “I am Darren Wilson” bracelets while in uniform and on duty, according to a letter sent to Police Chief Thomas Jackson on Friday.

“There is no question that police departments can and should closely regulate officers’ professional appearance and behavior, particularly where, as here, the expressive accessory itself is exacerbating an already tense atmosphere between law enforcement and residents in Ferguson,” wrote Christy Lopez, duty chief of the Special Litigation Section for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division.

“The bracelets reinforce the very ‘us versus’ them mentality that many residents of Ferguson believe exists.”

During the department’s interviews with community members on Wednesday night, Lopez said several Ferguson residents told DOJ representatives that police patrolling the protest sites in Ferguson on Tuesday were wearing the Darren Wilson wristbands. Residents said the wristbands “upset and agitated people.”

Some officers who were wearing the bracelets had black tape over their name plates, residents told the DOJ at the Wednesday community meeting.

“The practice of not wearing, or obscuring, name plates violates your own department’s policies, which we advised you earlier this week when we requested that you end the practice immediately,” Lopez wrote.

Some residents took pictures of the bracelets, but Lopez said she could not identify which law enforcement agency the officers wearing the wristbands were from. For this reason, Lopez said the department’s COPS office has spoken with St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar and State Highway Patrol Superintendent Colonel Ron Replogle about prohibiting the bracelets as well.

“As you are all too aware, the actions of other police officers while in Ferguson can impact your community as much as the actions of your own police officers,” she stated.

NFL Case Sparks Debate on Spanking

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – As the NFL’s 2014 season warms up, Minnesota Vikings running back, Adrian Peterson, prepares to face charges of reckless or negligent injury to a child. A week prior, news surfaced that he had spanked his 4-year-old son with a switch, resulting in major bruises and lacerations on his legs, thighs, and scrotum.

When the news broke, NBA’s Charles Barkley happened to be a guest on an NFL sportscasting show, where he explained, “Whipping – we do that all the time. Every Black parent in the South is going to be in jail under those circumstances.”

Mainstream news coverage of the charges have been defining what a switch is for their audiences, a fact that highlights the wide racial divide in child rearing. But even Black parents and scholars are beginning to publicly question whether corporal punishment—spankings, beatings, whoopings, whatever you want to call it – is the best way to discipline children.

Commentary sprouted up earlier this month from Black thinkers such as Brittney Cooper, professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University, who writes for online publication, Salon.com:

“Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that the loving intent and sincerity behind these violent modes of discipline makes them no less violent, no more acceptable,” said Brittney Cooper, a professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University, who writes for online publication, Salon.com. “ Some of our ideas about discipline are unproductive, dangerous and wrong. It’s time we had courage to say that.”

In a New York Times op-ed, Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson called the cultural belief that spankings build character “a sad and bleak justification for the continuation of the practice.”

Times columnist Charles Blow said, “When we promulgate the notion that our success is directly measurable to the violence visited on our bodies as children, we reinforce a societal supposition that pain is an instrument of love, and establish a false binary between the streets and the strap.”

At the end of his conversation, Barkley conceded that, “maybe we need to rethink it.”

Nowadays, the issue of physical punishment as part of child rearing brings heavy debate, both in social and academic spheres. Some believe that hitting children amounts to good parenting, some even citing the Bible.

Some point to Proverbs 13:24: “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.”

Proverbs 23:13 says, “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with a rod, he will not die.”

As a Pew study showed, “…African Americans stand out as the most religiously committed racial or ethnic group in the nation.”

Even those who believe in not sparing the rod, think there should be limits.

“I think that children need to be spanked,” says communications entrepreneur, Leris Bernard. “I’m not saying that welts on a 3-year old is okay, but sometimes it just takes one little pop.”

Generally, research finds that corporal punishment is at best, ineffective in the long term, and at worst, abusive and detrimental. It is legal in all 50 states. In 31 states, however, it is illegal for schools to administer corporal punishment; the other 19 explicitly allow schools this authority.

“There’s a more gentle and productive way to discipline children,” says Yvette Harris, professor of psychology at Miami University and co-author of The African American Child: Development and Challenges. “I’m not a supporter of the physical ‘switch method’ [Peterson] used. Children get so caught up in the physical pain of the discipline that they really forget what they need to do to change their behavior.”

Bernard asserts that children are looking for boundaries, and those boundaries can be better established with spanking as opposed to words a child may not believe or understand.

“You can’t negotiate with a child with limited reasoning skills,” Bernard says. “They’re trying to find boundaries and learn is this a ‘no-no,’ a ‘no-maybe,’ a ‘no, not right now,’ or a ‘no, normally yes, but I’m in a bad mood.’ Basically, kids need to know where the line is, and a little smack puts an ‘X’ on the spot.”

Physical discipline has several roots in the Black community. There’s respect for elders, which inherently means that children are not equal to adults.

Some who object to spanking links the practice to slavery.

“I wish I could tell you that it originated in slavery, but there’s a part of me that has to say that not all African American parents resorted to that form of discipline,” Harris says, adding that it is more likely that Black parenting mirrors the social peak of corporal punishment from the 1940s through the 1960s.

“When I think of the context of slavery…I can’t speak to parenting strategies among slaves because there’s not a lot of historical data on that,” Harris stated.

And there’s also the argument that Black children cannot afford the luxury of carelessness and disobedience in a society that considers Blacks a threat.

But Harris says that message can be conveyed without using pain and fear.

“You don’t want to instill fear in African American children. I think African American parents do a great job raising their children. We have to walk them through issues of race, that’s our reality,” she says. She also points out that the world offers up many teachable moments on the subject.

“But you want to do it in a self-affirming way – a way that gives them power in their lives. Resorting to corporal punishment is not the way to do that.”

For all the data and scholarship that links childhood spankings to less-than stellar adulthood outcomes, experiential data can’t be ignored. For every person who was spanked and became a poorly adjusted adult, there’s another with bittersweet memories of belts and hairbrushes who maintains great relationships with their parents and well-adjusted lives. It begs the question: Is there a ‘right’ way to incorporate physical discipline or consequences that is both effective and harmless?

The professional consensus seems to be that one could strike a balance—but one could also be more effective without inflicting pain.

Harris recommends treating children with equal respect and including them in the discipline process. This plays out in different ways at different ages. For toddlers and young children who can’t reason yet, stern explanation of expectations coupled with repetitive, consistent consequences is enough. By middle school, children can be included in a more “democratic” way – parents lay down the boundaries, and the punishments (often in the form of revoked privileges) can be negotiated and agreed upon.

“It sounds weird but it makes for a more healthy child. If they’re part of the discipline process, they already know what they’ve done wrong and what the consequences are,” Harris says.

Harris says our past plays a role in how we view corporal punishment.

“I think maybe it’s something African Americans hear and sort of struggle with. Because we feel that if [spanking] worked for us, it should work for our children but that’s not necessarily the case,” she says. “The ecology of raising children today is quite different than it was when [Peterson] was a child, and definitely different from when I was a child.”

Justice Department Urged to Stay Focused on Police Killings

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Officials from the National Action Network, the National Urban League the National Bar Association, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other civil rights groups have urged the Justice Department to remain focused on the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases and to make sure that the police officers involved are held responsible for their deaths.

During a press conference attended by the parents of Brown and Garner, Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League said, “In recent weeks and months confidence around the concept of justice for all in our nation has plunged to the lowest levels that we have seen in a generation.”

On July 17, Eric Garner, 43, was choked to death by Officer Daniel Pantaleo in Staten Island, N.Y. Moments before his death, officers had attempted to arrest Garner, who was unarmed, for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. Although Garner’s death has been ruled a homicide, no charges have been filed against the officer involved.

On August 9, Michael Brown, 18, was shot to death by Darren Wilson, a White police officer in Ferguson, Mo., following a brief confrontation. Moments before Wilson fatally shot Brown, the officer had asked the teenager, who was also unarmed, and another young man to stop walking in the street.

Gwen Carr, Garner’s mother, said that although her son wasn’t perfect, he didn’t deserve to die.

“Our children might have made mistakes in their lives, but at the time that they were being killed, they weren’t doing – the sentence wasn’t death,” Carr said. “For selling cigarettes, the sentence wasn’t death. For the children walking in the street, the sentence wasn’t death.”

Morial said that the group demands justice, fairness and a full and complete investigation by the United States Department of Justice into Michael Brown’s death and Eric Garner’s murder.

In recent weeks the Justice Department has announced plans to investigate the Ferguson police department to determine if they violated the rights of Black residents in the past.

On September 18, Attorney General Eric Holder launched the National Initiative for Building Community Trust, a program that “will create a substantial investment in training, evidence-based strategies, policy development and research to combat distrust and hostility between law enforcement and the communities they serve,” according to a press release issued by the Justice Department.

Holder said that the events in Ferguson reminds us that we can’t allow tensions, which are present in so many neighborhoods across America, to go unresolved.

“As law enforcement leaders, each of us has an essential obligation – and a unique opportunity – to ensure fairness, eliminate bias, and build community engagement,” said Holder. “The National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice represents a major step forward in resolving long standing tensions in many of America’s communities and it will allow us to build on the pioneering work that the Justice Department and our law enforcement partners across the country are already doing to strengthen some of our nation’s most challenged areas.”

The project, funded with $4.75 million grant, will also provide research and technical support to law enforcement officials and others who work in the criminal justice system.

Al Sharpton, civil rights activist and founder of the National Action Network, said that talking about sensitivity and training is good, before adding that you don’t need people who would choke a man when he says 11 times on tape, ‘I can’t breathe.’

He does not need training, Sharpton said. He needs to be held accountable.

Sharpton said that the coalition of civil rights groups and community stakeholders is not anti-police, and the group doesn’t believe that all police are bad.

“But acting as though that no police is wrong none of the time is moving this country towards a police state where we don’t have the right to question police under any circumstances,” said Sharpton.

Sharpton described a recent case in South Carolina where a state trooper shot an unarmed man.

On, September 4, just outside of Columbia, S.C. Sean Groubert, South Carolina Highway Patrol trooper pulled Levar Jones over allegedly for not wearing his seat belt. Groubert asked Jones to exit his vehicle then asked him for his driver’s license. As Jones reached back into his vehicle to retrieve his license, Groubert opened fired, striking Jones at least once. The incident was captured on Groubert’s dash-camera.

“Well, I raise this question to the Justice Department: if that police officer in South Carolina was arrested, why isn’t the police officer that shot Michael Brown arrested? Why isn’t the police officer that choked Eric Garner arrested?” Sharpton asked. “Does probable cause not work all work the country? You don’t need a grand jury indictment to make arrest you need what you had in South Carolina. But what we seem to have is different strokes for different folks.”

Groubert was subsequently fired and arrested on charges of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, which could lead to his serving up to 20 years in prison.

Most law enforcement agencies have not been as decisive in South Carolina in handling wayward officers. Instead, there is an “intrinsic relationship” between local prosecutors and the local police that makes less likely that police officer will be prosecuted, Sharpton state.

He said the federal government can place a key role in making sure justice is served.

“If you have the federal government, that does not depend on local police, you have a more objective and fair investigation,” said Sharpton. “It protects everyone.”

During the press conference, Michael Brown’s parents, spoke briefly about the frustration they have felt in dealing with law enforcement officials in Missouri.

An emotional Leslie McSpadden, Michael’s mother said, “Missouri has not shown us anything that we are looking for.”

The father, Michael Brown, Sr., said, “This is very terrible for us and for everyone else that has lost. e’re here to get justice. We need your help.”

Cornell William Brooks, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said that within 12 hours of Michael Brown’s death, civil rights group were on the ground in Ferguson, Mo., trying to keep peace while seeking justice in the community. Brooks said that the NAACP has worked with the Justice Department to locate witnesses.

“Where you have communities under siege, where you have communities that feel, based upon their experience and empirical evidence that they are in the midst of a pandemic of police misconduct, they have every reason to be afraid of coming forward,” said Brooks.

Brooks continued: “We want to honor these families with our service and commitment. [We will] see it to the very end.”